Christianists Holding Back GOP

Former GOP Governor of New Jersey and EPA head Christie Todd Whitman has an op-ed piece in today's Washington Post which echos thoughts that I have had for some time now: if the GOP wants to become a majority party again, it must jettison the control of the Christianist extremists who now control the party and who are increasingly radioactive in terms of driving away moderates and independents. The fixation of the Christianists with abortion, gay bashing, and trying to write religion into the laws is NOT something normal voters want. How the GOP will do this - since the Kool-Aid crowd, living in an alternate universe as they do, is oblivious to the fact that they are NOT mainstream. The fact that this faction of the party believes that McCain lost because he wasn't reactionary enough is indicative of the difficulty that will be encountered in prying control of the party away from the James Dobson and Tony Perkins crowd. Here are highlights from Whitman's column:

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Four years ago, in the week after the 2004 presidential election, we were working furiously to put the finishing touches on the book we co-authored, "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America."

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Our central thesis was simple: The Republican Party had been taken hostage by "social fundamentalists," the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it would become increasingly marginalized and find itself out of power.

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At the time, this idea was roundly attacked by many who were convinced that holding on to the "base" at all costs was the way to go. . . . What a difference four years makes -- and the data show it. While a host of issues were at play in this election, the primary reason John McCain lost was the substantial erosion of support from self-identified moderates compared with four years ago.

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Nor did the Republican ticket lose because "values voters" stayed home. On the contrary, according to exit polls, such voters made up a larger proportion of the electorate this year than in 2004 -- 26 percent, up from 23 percent. Extrapolating from those data, McCain actually won more votes from self-identified white evangelical/born-again voters than Bush did four years ago -- 1.8 million more. But that was not enough to offset the loss of so many moderates.

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Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness. On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division. It's long past time for the GOP to do the same.